NOTE TO “A DESCRIPTION OF THE TANTRIK MYSTIC RITES AND CEREMONIES KNOWN AS ‘SAVASADHANA’”

[The Theosophist, Vol. IV, Supplement to No. 10, July, 1883, p. 12]

So little is known outside Bengal about Tantrik rites and ceremonies that space has been given this interesting paper, despite the disgusting and horrid ceremonial it describes. As there are both magic (pure psychic science) and sorcery (its impure counterpart) so there are what are known as the “White” and “Black” Tantras. The one is an exposition, very clear and exceedingly valuable, of occultism in its noblest features, the other a devil’s chap-book of wicked instructions to the would-be wizard and sorcerer. Some of the prescribed ceremonies in the latter are far worse even than the Savasadhana, and show to what depths of vile bestiality bad men (and women) are ready to plunge in the hope of feeding lust, hatred, cruelty and other vile passions. The subject is somewhat touched upon in Isis Unveiled, whose readers will, among other things, recall the awful incantation with the bloody head of a murdered child by Catherine de Medici, Queen of France, with the help of her private Christian priest.*